“With the unique exception of white evangelical Protestants, majorities of all other major religious groups have an unfavorable opinion of Trump. Majorities of black Protestants (80%), religiously unaffiliated Americans (75%), Hispanic Catholics (74%), non-Christian religious Americans (73%), white mainline Protestants (52%), and white Catholics (52%) have a negative opinion of Trump. By contrast, almost seven in ten (68%) white evangelical Protestants have a favorable view of Trump, including 28% who have a very favorable view.”

“Once again, the Trump administration is pandering to corporate polluters at the expense of those suffering the worst impacts of climate change. From boasting about fossil fuel production to refusing endorsement of the staggering UN IPCC report on the climate crisis, the official US response to COP 24 has been deeply disturbing. Despite this administration’s actions, communities across America are building support from the ground up for transformative climate action. These past weeks, momentum has soared for a Green New Deal, bringing climate change to the forefront in headlines and the halls of power. Trump and his allies can dig in their heels, but the movement for a just transition off of fossil fuels to a 100% renewable energy economy won’t be stopped.”

See 350.org on Trump administration’s COP 24 statementJust as many cities and states of USA are ignoring Trump as best they can, so is the world. While Trump can do a lot of damage in the meantime, a lot of that damage can be reversed by independent action by cities and states, whole industries, individuals, organizations and politicians in opposition at all levels. The world can as well. Just ignore the bellowing from the White House and get on with life. Trump will be gone sooner or later and we can all do the right things needed to leave a livable planet to our descendants.

One thing that still puzzles me is the attitude to impeachment. There is no requirement that a full slate of impeachable offences be charged on the scroll, just a sufficient number in the minds of Congress. Presently, many are treating impeachment as a hot potato to be avoided at all costs. There is a cost to tolerating Trump, continued rampant corruption and bad government. What is it that would lead Trump and his partners to suddenly change their stripes of criminal behaviour before election and after? Nothing. The crimes and bad effects of Trumpism will continue until Trump is stopped, one way or another. Get on with it, Congress. If the House votes to impeach but the Government of Pigs in the Senate refuse, that will be on their heads, ensuring Trump will be out at the next election. The citizens are ready to vote even if the politicians fear to do so.

Apparently, Electra Meccanica Vehicles has finally understood they have to deliver the goods. They’ve put up a web-page of delivered Solos. They show 39 delivered, some with the USA-configuration with the “third eye”. I guess those are made in Vancouver models. Shortly, we should start to see made in China models.

“Ocasio-Cortez, along with a growing number of Democratic colleagues, is asking Rep. Nancy Pelosi to create a select committee on a “Green New Deal” — comprehensive legislation for a mass mobilization of people and resources toward solutions to the climate crisis. If Pelosi agrees, the congressional committee could develop a plan to improve the economy and the environment within a year.”

See Ocasio-Cortez’s ‘Green New Deal’ is a smart plan (opinion)Things are a bit grim at the moment with Trump and his Government of Pigs gutting just about every environmental regulation Obama brought in but there is hope. With the control of the House back in Democratic hands some of the power to tax and spend is also coming back. I hope the GOP realizes its days are numbered if it doesn’t get back on the wagon. Trump won in 2016 because too many thought Hillary was a sure thing and they didn’t have to vote… That’s changed. The anthill is aroused and dangerous. Everyone knows about solar power and electric vehicles. Everyone knows Trump is the most corrupt POTUS ever. There are several ways to fix that. The GOP could revolt. The Dems could impeach. The voters could do the right thing. Whatever… It’s better late than never to fix what we’re doing wrong with the environment. It’s not enough to control waste. It’s not enough to control poison. We have to control the wanton release of CO2 into the environment. That will require the undoing of a century of gas-guzzling. That will be hard but it’s possible and this is the right initiative to get it started.

“California had 8.64 plug-in vehicle (PEV) registrations per 1,000 people in 2017, followed by Hawaii with 5.12, and Washington state with 4.06. Other states with PEV registrations per 1,000 people greater than two were Oregon, Vermont, Colorado, Arizona, and Maryland. Seventeen states plus the District of Columbia were between one and two PEV registrations per 1,000 people, while 25 states were below one. The average for the United States is 2.21 PEV registrations per 1,000 people.”

Fix that. Get to know EVs. See what’s on the market. Tell the makers what you like and don’t like. For God’s sake, stop buying gas-guzzlers! That will have the biggest effect on the uptake of PEVs as makers will make more.

One last thing. PEVs include hybrids. Those are just gas-guzzlers in disguise if you drive mostly on highways as I do. They cost more and still guzzle gasoline and stink up the place. Even if you drive in the city, hybrids don’t save nearly as much as a BEV (battery EV). If you live in or near a city you have no excuse not buying an EV except there are none on the sales lots. Fix that. Demand an EV or don’t buy any new vehicle. Just do it.

Soon, I will have my Solo EV. It’s coming slowly to market because it’s from a tiny startup short of cash and facilities. It will take years for Electra Meccanica Vehicles to make much difference but I’ve bought my last gas-guzzling personal vehicle. Solo is a special car designed for commuters and errand makers. It just carries me and my personal stuff wherever I want within 161km or so. That’s perfect for how I live. It will do most of what many others do too. It’s inexpensive to own and to operate. There’s nothing holding me back except the slow advance of production in China. It’s being shipped to USA first… Perhaps next year I can kick the gas-guzzling habit. TLW may take a while. I hope she loves mine enough to buy a second Solo.

“British Columbia’s new climate action plan proposes sweeping changes that will touch every part of the economy from home heating to heavy transportation, using the province’s abundant supply of clean hydro-electric power to help shift individuals and industry off their reliance on the fossil fuels that currently make up two-thirds of B.C.’s energy consumption.

Details of the rebates and tax credits aimed at spurring the change will not be released until budget day in February, but Premier John Horgan says his province is now back on track to cut greenhouse gas emissions in line with Canada’s international commitments on climate.”

Well, it’s a start. A long journey starts with the first step. This is like the second step for BC which has had good EV-subsidies for a while. Now they will do something about heating, cooling, heavy transportation … It’s time for my province to catch up. We’re good in Manitoba for using renewable energy just not enough with gas-guzzling cars and trucks running amok. Then there are furnaces belching CO2 to the sky in the vain attempt to heat buildings against our winter. More solar heating and geothermal, please! My home uses both and our average power bill is half what smaller homes have. We can do better just by tweaking the building codes and some taxation and renovations.

“The Oxalis meets these challenges head on and provides a high performance IoT gateway solution with low power consumption in a modular architecture.”

See OxalisThis one looks like beating a dead horse… This is a revival of the long-obsolete A-53 boards with dual SATA and dual gigabit/s NICs. For that and only 1gB RAM they charge $hundreds more than some board with USB3 to which one could adapt SATA drives and extra NICs… I don’t get the marketing plan here. The format is useful but an A-53 CPU and only 1 gB RAM is pathetic these days. I want to go fully ARMed but this is not the way.

“President Trump’s top economic adviser on Monday said the White House wants to end subsidies for electric vehicle purchases, without saying how it would eliminate the incentives that were created by Congress. Larry Kudlow, director of the White House National Economic Council, told reporters that electric car subsidies “will all end in the near future,” adding 2020 or 2021 when asked for a timeline.”

This is yet again an example of the “populist” tyrant, Trump, trying to impose his personal will on the population, despite a 20% and growing share of the population favouring EVs. By 2020, Trump will be out of office and EV-lovers will swamp his supporters by far. Trump should worry about staying out of jail instead of trying to roll back the tide…

Subsidizing EVs is a simple cost-effective way of nudging folks away from fossil-fuels. EVs are sufficiently attractive now that subsidies may be obsolete soon after 2020 but there’s certainly no good reason to slow down the change to driving electrically in the meantime. I will buy my Solo EV without a subsidy as things stand because Canada hasn’t gotten its act together and because its the right thing to do, driving electrically. Others may need a push like a subsidy or war in the Middle East or uncivil war south of the border or…

“Moving on to drivers’ favorite things about electric cars now that they have them, “environmental benefit” didn’t always win the day. Instant torque and the smooth and quiet ride of an electric car were often at or near the top of the charts. The convenience of home charging and low maintenance also sometimes made it onto the podium. Low maintenance was actually the highest scoring benefit among non-Tesla EV drivers in North America.”

See 10 Charts: Top Electric Car Benefits & Top MisconceptionsExperience is a great teacher. The neat thing about it is that experiences can be shared. A whole society can learn from the experiences of friends, neighbours, leaders… With EVs, one can make the choice based on news, essays, specifications, shared experiences, and just common sense. If it costs less to drive a kilometre in an EV, why not do it that way? If an EV is not much more trouble than your refrigerator, go for it. If the guy down the street is enjoying his, check it out. It’s all good.

EVs are here to stay. They are growing on us. They will reduce waste, pollution and reduce greenhouse gas emissions sharply. Choose an EV sooner rather than later to maximize the benefits to all of us.

I’ve been driving a gas-guzzling hybrid EV for a decade. I hate it, maintenance, heat, stench, warm-ups, oil-changes… I’d much rather plug in a battery-powered EV. My first choice is the Solo EV since our gas-guzzler is almost always driven around empty. It just makes sense to drive Solo.

“Amazon has designed its own 64-bit Arm server processors, dubbed Graviton, and is right now renting them out on AWS.

Just in time for its annual re:Invent conference in Las Vegas, the internet titan today revealed its A1 family of EC2 instances, ranging from the a1.medium with 1 vCPU, 2GB of RAM, and up to 3.5Gbps EBS and 10Gbps network bandwidth, which costs $0.0255 per hour on-demand, all the way up to a1.4xlarge with 16 vCPUs and 32GB of RAM, costing $0.408 per hour.”

See A rumble in Amazon’s jungle: AWS now rents out homegrown 64-bit Arm server processorsHah! ARMed servers have been on the horizon for far too long. Now, it seems, they are about to become mainstream on Amazon. It’s obvious that where the need matches the performance ARM can be cost-effective against Intel/AMD. This is not the end however. This chip was based on a smartphone design of a few years ago. It’s a prototype for bigger things to come. Can’t wait to get my site hosted on ARM or have ARM run my home network. Soon it will all come together.

It’s been more than a month since I planted my acorns of White Oak (Quercus alba). Today, I was checking a pot for moisture on a work table and discovered an acorn of White Oak that had been dropped and was just sitting there, split open with a short tap root sticking out. I made up a deep pot with moist soil and planted this gem just beneath the surface. I’m sure it will do its thing and need sunlight for its leaves in a few weeks…

It’s not often one finds a living thing with such patience, optimism and resilience to survive my neglect but there it is.

As it turned out I had a very high germination rate on those acorns, nearly 80% so I have way too many seedlings for my yard. I sense a giveaway campaign in the spring… The White Oak needs space and, despite the size of my yard, I have to live within the bounds set by TLW (The Little Woman) so I may only plant a half-dozen oaks and I have about 80 seedlings happily growing four or more leaves already. For slow-growing trees, these seedlings are like rockets. They can live for centuries and when mature reach 30m in height and 20m in width, not to mention a trunk 2m in diameter. I won’t live to see that but I can get the process started, my little campaign to fight Trump’s insane global warming campaign.

““The current situation with dozens of distributions, each with different rules, each with different versions of different libraries, some with certain libraries missing, each with different packaging tools and packaging formats … that basically tells app developers ‘go away, focus on platforms that care about applications.’”

So, yes, 2019 will be the year of Linux end users who don’t know they’re Linux end users. But, “the” Linux desktop as a mass-market alternative to Windows? No, that’s not ever going to happen, not as long as Linux developers can’t play on the same page.

See The Linux desktop: With great success comes great failure“SJVN is usually right but this is one of the exceptions. His own article proves that folks live in their browsers. Lots of people don’t even own a desktop machine these days. Lots of people who own a desktop live in their browsers. So, GNU/Linux which can run a browser no matter what distro, no matter which package manager, no matter where they live, can successfully use a GNU/Linux desktop. My wife (TLW) does. If she can do it anyone can.

The latest figures show there are whole countries where GNU/Linux thrives at well over 1% share of the desktop. That’s well beyond computer-geek levels. GNU/Linux works for people and no amount of revisionist history or apologies for monopolistic tyrants will undo that. Allow competition in the market and GNU/Linux thrives. Last time I checked, not a lot of people are buying That Other OS either. Given a choice, as many would choose GNU/Linux to run their browser as anything else. All those “must have” applications that are TOOS-only are niche products that are not needed to run a browser. Most browsers run just fine on any distro of GNU/Linux. I recommend Debian. It works for me.

My Mission

My observations and opinions about IT are based on 40 years of use in science and technology and lately, in education. I like IT that is fast, cost-effective and reliable. My first use of GNU/Linux in 2001 was so remarkably better than what I had been using, I feel it is important work to share GNU/Linux with the world. Now that I'm retired I still use GNU/Linux on every computer in my home except the smartphones which run Android/Linux.

Lately, I've been giving lots of thought to the world I inherited and which I will leave to my descendants. I'm planting grass, trees, flowers and vegetables in my large lot and I've ordered a Solo EV. I plan to charge my Solo by means of a tracking solar array. Life is good if you have a purpose. I do.